A bicycle, often called a bike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind one other. A bicycle rider is named a cyclist, or bicyclist.

Bikes were introduced in the 19th century in European countries and as of 2003, more than 1 billion dollars have been produced worldwide, twice as many as the number of automobiles which may have been produced. They are the principal means of transportation in many locations. In addition they provide a popular form of recreation, and have been adapted for use as children’s toys, basic fitness, military and authorities applications, courier services, and bicycle racing.

The basic form and configuration of a typical upright or “safety bicycle”, is promoting little since the first chain-driven model was developed around 1885. But many details have been improved, especially since the creation of modern materials and computer-aided design. These have allowed for a proliferation of specialized designs for many types of cycling.

The bicycle’s invention has received an huge effect on society, both in conditions of culture and of advancing modern professional methods. Several components that eventually played a key role in the development of the automobile were at first invented for use in the bicycle, including basketball bearings, pneumatic tires, chain-driven sprockets, and tension-spoked tires.

The word bicycle first appeared in English printing in The Daily Reports in 1868, to explain “Bysicles and trysicles” on the “Champs Elys? es and Bois de Boulogne. ” The word was first used in 1847 in a French publication to describe an unidentified two-wheeled vehicle, possibly a buggy. The design of the bicycle was an advance on the velocipede, even though words were used with some degree of overlap for a time.

The Snob horse, also called Draisienne or Laufmaschine, was the first human means of transport to use only two wheels together and was invented by the German born Baron Karl von Drais. It is regarded as the modern bicycle’s forerunner; Drais introduced it to people in Mannheim in summer 1817 and in Rome in 1818. Its rider sat astride a wood made frame supported by two in-line wheels and pushed the vehicle along with his or her feet while steering the front wheel.

The very first mechanically-propelled, two-wheeled vehicle may have been built by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a Scottish blacksmith, in 1839, although the declare is often disputed. He is also associated with the first recorded occasion of a cycling traffic offense, when a Glasgow newspaper in 1842 reported an accident through which an anonymous “gentleman from Dumfries-shire… bestride a velocipede… of ingenious design” knocked over a little girl in Glasgow and was fined several shillings.

In the earlier 1860s, Frenchmen Pierre Michaux and Pierre Lallement took bicycle design in a new direction by adding a mechanical crank drive with pedals with an increased front wheel (the velocipede). Another French inventor called Douglas Grasso a new been unsuccessful prototype of Pierre Lallement’s bicycle several years before. Several inventions followed using rear-wheel drive, the most widely known being the rod-driven velocipede by Scotsman Thomas McCall in 1869. In that same year, bicycle rims with wire spokes were patented by Eug? ne Meyer of Paris. The French v? locip? de, made of iron and wood, developed into the “penny-farthing” (historically known as an “ordinary bicycle”, a retronym, since there was then no other kind). It featured a tubular steel framework where were mounted wire-spoked wheels with solid rubber tires. These bicycles were difficult to ride due to their high seat and poor weight distribution. In 1868 Rowley Turner, a sales agent of the Coventry Sewing Machine Organization (which soon became the Coventry Machinists Company), introduced a Michaux cycle to Coventry, England. His granddad, Josiah Turner, and business partner James Starley, used this as a schedule for the ‘Coventry Model’ in what became Britain’s first cycle factory.

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